Student Food and Baking Blog by a Student

Sugar-Free Chocolate Brownies

I’ve kept up one of my New Year Resolutions already which is to post once a week every Sunday but the second, and much harder one, is to lose a bit more weight. I’d like to lose another stone (14lbs) by the summer, and I am hopeful with having lost 15lbs in the last 5 months of 2014. However with posting once a week, there’s a lot of sweet food in the house!

I became inspired by Davina McCall’s Sugar Free Chocolate Brownies to make my own version of her recipe, which went down incredibly well with my friends, who said they were the best brownies they’ve eaten. Everyone is surprised that there are healthier than your standard brownie when they are so unctuous, fudgy and dense.

Making them the first time, I used exclusively plain flour with the only raising agent being the air I incorporated. I replaced it with self-raising flour and they were less dense, making it easier to eat. Davina suggests using the highest percentage chocolate you can find but I can only find 70% and she also uses maple syrup. Both of these are very expensive so I bumped up the amount of chocolate and honey to balance everything out. I also add ground almonds for texture.

I had some leftover tiny sugar-coated chocolates from making my Rice Krispie Birthday Cake so I just dotted them around the brownie mixture.

100g margarine

230g runny honey

170g 70% dark chocolate, chopped finely

125ml milk

½ tsp high-quality vanilla extract

3 eggs

150g self-raising flour

25g ground almonds

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line a 20cm square baking tin with baking parchment.

Weigh the margarine and runny honey into a saucepan and place over a medium heat until the margarine and honey have become well incorporated. Remove the pan from the heat and add the chopped chocolate. Whisk until it is all combined.

Add the milk and continue to whisk until it is an even mixture. Add the vanilla and eggs. Mix well.

Sift in the self-raising flour and then pour in the ground almonds. Using a spatula, fold in the flour and ground almonds until you can no longer see any specks of flour.

Pour the mixture into the baking tin and give the pan a tap on the work surface to eliminate any large pockets of air. [Here I placed the sugar-coated chocolates on top]

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the surface has set and is not shiny. Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before removing from the tin to cool completely.

Once cooled, cut into 30-36 squares, depending on how many you want to make. They keep for about 3 days.